Advice From the Woman Who Dressed This Year's Most Stylish Film Character

A conversation with Daniela Ciancio, costume designer for the Oscar nominated film 'La Grande Bellezza'

If there is one filmwe wish would guide the direction of men's style — far more so than the high-waisted pants of Her — it is La Grande Bellezza, an Italian film by many accounts likely to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this Sunday. It's about a Neapolitan man named Jep Gambardella, an erstwhile author of great renown who has spent the past several decades throwing fabulous parties and maintains an almost diabolical grip on Roman social circles; at one point in the film, he confesses, "I didn't just want to attend parties. I wanted the power to make them fail."

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He dresses the part: His attire is immaculate, though unique to him, especially when it comes to the many colors of his assorted jackets and pocket squares. And yet, as the film's costume designer Daniela Ciancio told us, Jep is "an old-fashioned man alive today" who is surrounded by "a world that has lost a certain elegance."

We agree with Jep's commitment. So we spoke with Daniela over coffee in Rome to get her insight into how a man can find his own balance, whether "trying too hard" is bull, and, yes, her Oscar plans.

ESQUIRE.COM: I'd like to talk a bit about how you developed a closet like Jep's. He's a quintessential man, but also unique.

DANIELA CIANCIO: I'm very tied to the idea of the classic male. I like the elegance of the classic man, but not too formal — elegant, classic, but still young. Above all, it's based on the quality of the cut and fabric. But there's also that note of eccentricity — maybe in the fabric they use to make a shirt, or in the tie. You don't see a lot of pocket squares around, they were just in the film, but...

ESQ: It's a way to be a little...

DC: ... a little over the top. It could be. I think it depends on the characters — both in real life and in films. And when creating that character you're also correcting certain physical characteristics — correcting them through various cuts of dress. Each one of us needs to be re-proportioned a little bit. Every one of us could use it. And there's a way to play with the proportions just a little and balance them so as to cut a more elegant figure.

ESQ: So how do you do it? At least in a Neapolitan sense.

Elizabeth Claire Herring

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Jep, and his yellow jacket and red pocket square.

DC: Well, there's a thing with the length of pant legs. For example, pant legs in Naples are short. It just touches the shoe and this is, so to speak, the Neapolitan way. The Roman way is very long compared to the Neapolitan way. I prefer a more classic style — one that goes halfway. Not the super-short English way. I prefer a pant that touches the second lace of the shoe. It always lays correctly, and I think it's a detail that makes a difference.

ESQ: Let's talk about the colors.

DC: The roots are clearly Neapolitan. Where, for instance, you'd combine a blue jacket with white slacks and a white shirt. It's a Neapolitan style, a little Capri.

ESQ: And yet there are inversions of the colors, too.

DC: We tried to take the same colors, repeating them and crossing them with white in another way. It's yellow, red, white and blue, all mixed and matched in various ways and brought together by his pocket squares.

ESQ: In the U.S., we have this expression: trying too hard. If you see a man who's trying toohard, he's fake. Does this exist in Italy?

DC: There's no term for it.

ESQ: I'm curious because, let's say I'm not self-confident and I wear a tie and a handkerchief in my pocket, it can be a little uncomfortable.

DC: Right. Because it doesn't feel true to your self.

Elizabeth Herring

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Elizabeth Claire Herring

Daniela's sketches for Jep.

ESQ: Jep seems to be a man of details. He doesn't wear normal pajamas to bed.

DC: He wears a grezzo linen shirt. It's a shirt made by a tailor...

ESQ:Grezzo, what does that mean?

DC:Grezzo means that it's spun a little looser. It gives the impression of having been lived in. Every type of material has a different feel to it, and there's research and knowledge that goes into picking a material to use. It's very important.

ESQ: Yes. And so even in bed, he's carefully put together.

DC: Well, because he's an old-fashioned man. The whole film is pervaded by horror vacui. Horror vacui, the fear of empty space that teaches you to fill things up with everything and more. Jep is a bit estranged from all this. The world around him has lost that elegance; he's the only one who still has this elegance in the film.

ESQ: And he says that through his clothes.

DC: Even in this café, every one of the men sitting here is dressed in a certain way. Each one of them has a jacket and a shirt and pants…

ESQ: Essential elements…

DC: … but each one of them combines it in one way rather than another based on his character. This is costuming.

ESQ: The definition of costuming.

DC: Dress is the soul of the character. Let's say you're talking about a film that has nothing to do with this one. If you look at the first scene in The Big Lebowski, where he's going shopping in a bathrobe and slippers. It's a costume that immediately tells you who that person is.

ESQ: So how should a real-life man start?

DC: Well, I normally do it for film — for the actors to become the character. When you're dealing with film, the work that I'm doing on creating the image of a person, but that actor does, too, with his mannerisms and reading. But I think the key is in what that person wants others to know about him — maybe what job he does or what circles he runs in. In a sense, it's like a game. The image you project is what we want others to see. You start there.

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ESQ: What's something else that you've admired from a film?

DC: I get a kick out of completely different things, too. I loved the coat in the first Matrix movie.

ESQ:The Matrix?

DC:The Matrix. The first one.

ESQ: Oh, The Matrix.

DC: There are a lot of things I find interesting.

ESQ: Do you get to attend the Oscars?

DC: I won't be there on Oscar night. I'll be there for the showing and the week before. I'll be on an airplane then.

ESQ: That's too bad.

DC: If they want, I can change my ticket. No big deal.

ESQ: Do you think the film will win?

DC: What do you mean "Do you think"? You don't say that! We're a little superstitious. We're Neapolitans.

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